


Ill Met by Moonlight

by AnonymousMink



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous Relationships, Dreamsharing, Everyone is legal., F/M, Force Bond, Kinda, Moral Dilemmas, Post-Canon, Sleeping Beauty Elements, author may or may not have lost her god damn mind, rarepair, well this is just hard to tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-15
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-08-31 06:11:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 18,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8567002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonymousMink/pseuds/AnonymousMink
Summary: After being discovered at the bottom of the generator shaft, cut clean in two and yet somehow still alive, Maul is taken to the med wing of the Palace at Theed to recover. Padmé would have been fine to forget him there, deep in a coma and hopefully never to wake, but then the dreams start... (Set 7 years post Menace, Canon-divergent AU featuring something that looks a bit like a Force bond if you squint.)





	1. To Sleep Perchance

**Author's Note:**

> A lil Padmaul multi-chapter set seven years after the events of Phantom Menace. Some fairytale/sleeping beauty themes, nebulous Force bond elements, and loooots of speculation! :-P Pure movie characterizations (as the author still hasn't seen Clone Wars ^^;), annnnd vague backstories galore due to advanced ret-conning by the keepers of canon,:-P
> 
> I'm pretty much 100% sure I've lost my goddamn mind by writing this, but HEY. HERE WE ARE. To quote the kids these days - #yolo. Ahahaha. Sob. Huge shout out to Rellie for beta'ing this (and keeping me away from cliff edges whilst writing it ^^;) You are a word witch and the best. <333
> 
> As always comments are loved, especially since I think there's only 6 of us and a chicken in this row boat of a ship! We gotta stick together right? :-P <333

Seven years.

Had it really been that long?

It still felt unreal to her. Like it had all happened yesterday.

Like it had never happened at all.

Padmè braced her hands against the balustrade, trying to centre herself against the rough stone as sparks burst across the horizon. Flashes of red and gold that turned night into day as she watched over the city, _her_ city, from high above it all as the revelry went long into the night. 

_The Day of Peace._

It was the last tangible proof that the invasion had happened at all. That they had fallen under attack. That they had _survived._ It wasn’t the Naboo’s custom to cling to the hardships of the past, instead they appreciated the _ceremony._ The reminder of their traditions, their successes.

It seemed to Padmé that this one annual celebration was the only evidence that it hadn’t all been a fever dream.

Well… not the _only_ evidence.

She wrapped her shawl tighter, a shiver running through her despite the warm night air.

The City of Theed had forgotten _him_ but she could not.

They’d found him at the bottom of the generator shaft, cut clean in two and yet… _alive._ A miracle or a curse, she couldn’t tell. His heart still somehow beating despite the gleam of spine that showed through the endless sea of red _._ As if he could keep himself breathing through sheer strength of will alone.

He’d been taken to the medbay on her orders, her physicians fighting the odds to save as much of him as they could.

She wondered if she would have made a different decision if she’d known then exactly where her orders would lead them. If it might not have been easier for everyone if she had just let him die.

More _merciful._

Her eyes watered as she remembered the sharp sting of bacta in the air as they’d submerged him, mingling with the acrid stench of charred flesh until she could barely keep herself from gagging. The med-droids working with micro-precision to reassemble the wreckage of his body as she’d swallowed her disgust, her hatred and _sympathy._ Averting her eyes as she fought to recompose herself, fixing her attention on her subjects instead.

“Will he survive?” She asked, harsher than she intended. A distant sort of panic ringing inside of her head as she lingered there a moment longer, even as the aide at her elbow pressed her to move onto the next thing. The next fire to put out, the next shattered fragment of their world that needed piecing back together.

“I believe so,” The doctor hesitated, bowing his head before her in an uneasy show of respect. “We can repair his body but a trauma like this… he might never wake up. If he does I don’t know how much of his mind will have survived.”

She nodded, schooling her face into impassivity even as her heart clenched. A dull throb of hate echoing up from within the cold places in her chest at the thought that this man, this… _creature_ , should survive when Qui-Gon hadn’t.

It wasn’t _fair._

It wasn’t _right._

She could see her feelings mirrored in the doctor’s face, his throat working in a tight swallow as he gazed over her shoulder at the patient. It was an expression she knew all too well, one of a subject who had more to say but felt that they couldn’t. Not to _her_ at least.

“Speak freely, sir.” She could hear the edge of impatience in her voice, unable to mask it even with her years of training. Fighting with herself to appear as they expected - impassive, untouched by the bloodshed. Somehow above it all even as her heart hammered in her chest, bruising her up from the inside as she trapped herself in a conversation she longed to be done with.

As if even this proximity to the creature might taint her.

“ _Why_ , your majesty?” The doctor asked at last, disbelief echoing in each syllable. His face rapt with a still sort of horror that left her cold inside. “Why try to save him? He _deserves_ to die.”

The guilt swept through her, sinking icy tendrils into her bones as she was faced with the same question she’d been asking herself since the order had been given to save him.

_Why indeed?_

She was at war with her own ideals. The principles she had always put her faith in faltering beneath the onslaught of her grief. Her _anger._ The tightly controlled part of her mind that demanded a life for a life.

That wanted to deal the blow herself.

She fought it back.

 _Vengeance isn’t justice._ The words echoed out of her memory in her father’s voice. _Mercy isn’t weakness._

It was a sentiment she clung to.

“We don’t get to decide that, doctor.” She said, forcing herself to look down at her unconscious enemy at last. Maker, even unconscious he was a fierce sight to behold, entirely alien to her with his stark red and black skin, his horns. She kept her gaze fixed firmly on the sunken hollows of his closed eyes, denying him any power over her now. “There has been enough death this day. He will face justice for his crimes.”

If the gods were willing he’d never wake up, but she wouldn’t make that choice for them.

He was a monster. A _killer._ But she wouldn’t allow herself or her people to be.

It hadn’t been long after that that the dreams had started.


	2. Troublous Dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so so much to everyone who read/commented on chapter one - I honestly thought I'd be posting into the void on this one so it's SO good to know I'm not alone in this ship :-P Comments mean the absolute world to me! <333
> 
> Van Rellsing - thanks for everything budski! You're talent for betaing is secondary only to the talent of your FACE!

 

He was lost.

Dismantled.

Drowning in a black sea of rage, without form, purpose. No memory of his name, his face, his past. Of what it was that burnt like a coal in the darkest part of him, keeping his heart beating with its fury alone as he was reeled through the currents.

He lashed out in the darkness, struggling blindly against the chaos that had become his entire universe. Trying to latch onto something, _anything_. Clinging to the faces that would swim up from the sickening void, the ones he couldn’t quite remember. The cycle of hot darkened rooms and red-lit swamplands.

The _blood._

An endless kaleidoscope of horrors and heartaches tormenting him.  Were they his? Broken pieces of a life he couldn’t remember, taunting him as lifetimes passed in between each beat of his hearts.

Did it matter?

There was only the void.

The _hatred_.

Over and over he fell, roaring into the darkness until everything inside of him had twisted beyond recognition. Reaching out with every fractured inch of his strength for something to anchor himself too.

Something to _save_ him.

 

-

 

The first few dreams were the worst. 

Broken, feverish nightmares that chased her gasping into the waking world. Chest burning with a rage she couldn’t comprehend as disjointed images flashed and flickered behind her eyes. Her heart trying to beat itself apart as she struggled to remember even a small part of herself.

Her skin was on fire with the memory of it as she scrambled up from her bed, palms bloody from where her hands had convulsed into fists around her sheets. Nails tearing through skin and silk alike as the horrors burst inside of her head.

Things she could never unsee. Un _feel._

At first they came slowly, once every few weeks perhaps. Her personal physician had given her a handful of sleeping pills and a quietly sympathetic talk about the legacy of traumatic experiences. She had led a battle before her fifteenth birthday after all, was it not to be expected that she might suffer some mental… repercussions?

She had nodded dutifully, swallowed her medicine, and taken a silent oath to never mention it again.

If it was a trauma that chased her then she was the only one who could deal with it. And besides, were there not others who had experienced worse? Lost more?

She was their _Queen._

There was no room in her for weakness, not when she had to be strength made flesh for her people.

There was a story her mother used to tell her, so long ago she could only remember fragments of it. A fable about a prince cursed to sleep for two thousand days and two thousand nights in the worst sort of torment until he was saved by the touch of his true love.

Only this was no fable and she had no true love to wake her from her nightmares.

She only had _herself._

So she stored them away, locking the nightmares from her thoughts from sunrise to sunset. It was only in the long night hours that she let herself deal with them, _her_ way. Quietly. Privately. Scouring every source on the holonet for solutions as she educated herself on the science and mysticism that had been long since attached to dreaming.

They told her her solution was simple. The only way to stop the dreams was to _face_ them.

To deal whatever darkness haunted her subconscious head on.

 

-

 

The madness only grew.

Doubling up on itself as time dragged ever onwards, a dying creature in the dirt.

His only respite came in the shortest, stillest moments, almost too slight to bear. A single drop of water in an endless, scorching desert. His grasping hands seizing onto something else in the darkness.

 _Someone_ else.

A strange sort of silence, almost peaceful. Fragile and fleeting and _strong._ Determined. A pale face swimming from the shadows in front of him. Blurred, featureless, but bright eyed.

Still and steady as a rock as it calmed the rage of his thoughts.

He tried to hold onto the image but it always faded too soon.

 _She_ faded too soon.

And the madness returned.

 

-

 

Weeks had passed. _Months._

But still she fought. Facing each new night terror with the same obstinate self-belief that had seen her elected the second youngest Queen in her planet’s history. The dreams writhed beneath the force of her will, beginning to change. Untangling themselves impossibly slowly behind her eyes as the months turned into years.

Each night she faced them and each night they cleared a little more as she grew used to the battle. Almost _comfortable_ with it. Time stretched ever onward and slowly, too slowly perhaps, she began to _win_ the war. Her steely determination forcing the dreams into something she could recognize as she was called to bear witness over and over again to the narrative her sleeping mind seemed determined to tell her.

They softened, no longer fits and flashes of pain. No longer blood and rage and _horror._ But something that had been there _before_ , something almost naive. She began to see a story in it, a strange kind of sympathy seeding itself between her ribs as she came face to face with the child at the heart of her nightmares. The one who lived on the planet with the red sun and magic in every shadow.

She could never quite remember him in the morning. His face shadowed, swimming in the back of her mind when she rose with the sun. Blurred but somehow _vital._ Dim memories of yellow eyes haunting her.

The turmoil retreated, the fear with it as she became entangled with this new chronicle **.** Watching unseen from the shadows as the boy fought and played with his brothers. A small child, but so _proud._ Determined in a way that she recognized all too well, every emotion echoing inside of her as if it was her own. His fear, his hopes and anxieties, an almost perfect remembrance of her own childhood.

She saw him grow. Saw him change. And, so gradually she hardly noticed, his image cleared even as the faces of those around him remained a mystery to her. Resolving itself until the morning she awoke in a cold sweat, throat tight as she saw him for who he was at last.

The child with the red skin. The tattoos and horns and… _yellow eyes._

Realizing far too late what the dreams _really_ were.

Who they belonged too.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TBC~~~~


	3. Dreamers Often Lie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyyyy there guys, so it seems like you weren't really into the last chapter but I hope you like this one more! Your comments really do keep me writing ^^;
> 
> Rell, oh beautiful word witch, thank you so much for your help and continued support on this fic! You are truly the bestest beta in the entire universe <3333333333333333

  


There was no real sense of time in the darkness.

Days were measured in heartbeats, in blood and dust. No sense of anything but the shifting scape of his world, the memories he was forced through over and over. Distorted, disturbed moments he was thrust into seemingly at random.

Then back into the void.

They were his weren’t they? The memories?

The child… he had been the child.

_Maul._

They called him that. But he had been something else too, he was sure of it.

Something… _powerful._

The uncertainty only fuelled his rage. Growing with each new memory, sharp edged and spiny as it tore at him from within. Manifesting as a white-hot ring of pain around his torso as he fought against the limits of his prison. Still unable to remember _how_ he had come to this. Forced to live this life all over again in disjointed fragments.

And through it all she appeared.

The face he had seen in the shadows, growing clearer and clearer with each fleeting appearance. Unravelling until a person had emerged from the darkness, a spectre at the edge of his consciousness. The pale woman with _steel_ in her eyes, as still as ever but somehow _alive._

Real in a way nothing else was, not even himself.

The closest he had come to solace.

And no matter how hard he fought to reach her, to demand his answers, he _couldn’t._ She remained mute, deaf, distant to him. Trapped behind an invisible barrier, one that numbed the memory of his skin each time he tried to breach it.

A fleeting, flickering thing before she vanished and he was alone once more. Drowning in a darkness thick as molasses as he fought the current for any trace of her. Pushing and pushing until he found himself… _elsewhere._

A mountain side village under a fierce sun, a clean columned city.

So bright it stung his eyes.

The girl… the one who had grown into a woman between the nightmares. The one whose name sat poised at the tip of his tongue.

He  _saw_ her.

Her present. Her past.

It was his turn to play spectre. Watching from the deepest part of the shadows as the solemn child accepted her crown. Her duty. Her face perfectly impassive as she was named Princess. _Queen._

He saw the day she got her marks, almost dizzy with the sweet scent of the white powder her handmaidens dusted across her brow. A stark contrast to everything he had known before. Unable to look away as they painted the straight line of her lips red, matching circles drawn high on her cheeks.

Blood splatters against the pallor.

She stood perfectly still but he could feel her _burning_ inside, her pride overflowing into his chest as they trapped her for the first time in the uniform of her office. Feeling the heavy robes dragging at her shoulders, the pinch of the ties, of metal and silk.

The unbearable weight of her head piece as they slid it down her temples. Her skull already aching beneath it.

She welcomed the pain. It was a reminder of her duty, her true _purpose._

Of the cost of failure.

And somehow he felt he understood it all, almost too well.

As if he could at last remember the cost of his own marks.

 

-

 

_They weren’t dreams._

Maker, how could she be so _stupid?_

The darkness, the violence, the yellow-eyed boy with the red skin and horns. How had she not pieced it together before?

They were memories.

 _His_ memories.

The creature in the hospital wing.

A sick feeling twisted up from the pit of her stomach as she tore from her bedchamber, stumbling over herself out onto the balcony. Gulping in frigid night air by the lungful as she forced herself to breathe. Her hands braced hard against the railing, gouging divots from her palms on the stone as she tried to clear the panic thundering through her.

Somehow, against all possibilities, she had found herself _there._ Inside of the creature’s mind. She’d watched his memories like her own, bound to them in a way she couldn’t begin to explain. 

And if she had seen his memories…  

What was to say he hadn’t witnessed _hers_ in return?

The ground swayed beneath her feet. All those nights she’d revisited her own past, the _relief_ she’d felt to spend a night in the safety of her own recollections instead... Those fleeting daylight moments when she could swear someone was watching her only to look up and find no one there.

How deep did this darkness run?

The thought made her skin crawl, shivers chasing up and down her spine as she stilled her feet against the cold flagstones. Locking herself in place to keep from storming down into the belly of the palace, all the way down to the furthest, smallest room in the hospital wing.

From driving her fists into the sleeping figure, _demanding_ he leave her alone.

She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to reign in the whiplash of anger that roared through her. The image of his comatose form mocking her from behind her eyelids as she forced herself to consider the consequences of such an action.

She was the _Queen._

She couldn’t go rushing madly through the palace, she couldn’t be found screaming and crying at an unconscious enemy. Maker, if anyone saw her like that… like _this._ Blood-stained hands trembling, heat burning high in her cheeks as she tried to keep what was left of her composure in check.

If they thought she was half as mad as she felt in that moment it would all be over.

_It was so unfair._

Was it not enough that she had the expectations of a planet weighing on her? Did she have to live through his pain as well?

The thought had her swallowing tightly, wrapping her arms around herself as the chill caught up to her at last. Sinking deep into her skin. She remembered his pain all too well, a trespasser in his most intimate moments. Unable to keep from comparing the sleeping creature she remembered to the boy she saw in her dreams.

Proud, angry, _alive._

Something in her chest twinged at the thought, a sudden sharp sense of loss she couldn’t let herself examine. Turning away she let out her feelings in a sharp exhale, feeling the sigh all the way down to her bones as she buried the unwelcome feelings.

There was no sense in thinking of it now, of beating herself up over how it came to be. She would be better served to make plans instead. Clenching her abused and bloodied palms she returned to her rooms, the throbbing pain finally clearing her thoughts enough that she could lay out her options. Determined that her course of action should be guided by logic, not feeling.

The most sensible route was obvious.

She should go to the Jedi.

She should confide her secret to them and trust that they could fix it. Fix _her._ She reached for her private commlink, determined to make the plans then and there. They had helped her before after all, so long ago, helped her reclaim her planet even at the cost of their own lives.

Her hand faltered, heart clenching guiltily in her chest as she pulled it away. Letting her fingers fall empty to her side.

No. This secret was hers.

They had already lost enough on her account.

 

-

 

He had come to crave it.

The stolen memories, the safe harbour from the storm inside of his own head.

Seeing the lavish celebrations thrown for the Queen’s nineteenth birthday. Her twentieth. Twenty first.

Eternities passing without him in banquets and terse, vital meetings. The fate of a planet hanging off her narrow shoulders as she moved through the permanent dichotomy of her life. Walking the razor thin divide between the jewel-bright appearance and the hard grey world of her life behind it.

She was something to behold.

Solid steel beneath her delicate war paint, never bowing, never flinching. Far fiercer than any of her guards. He sneered at them from the shadows, seeing the flaws in her chief security officer’s plans, the weaknesses any well trained operative could exploit.

Things Maul would never have allowed if her were the one protecting her.

Was that how he had come to know her? Had he been sent to guard her?

To _hurt_ her?

His own memories, the ones he’d managed to claim back at least, trickled like ink through his veins. He had been forged from the darkness, sent to work fear and rage for the Master he could never quite make out. His life was one of truth, of hard facts and dark justice. Hers of foolish sunlit _hope._

Yet somehow they had ended up here, intertwined.

Whatever the reason he had the strangest sense of… _g_ r _atitude_ for it. For the temporary relief she provided, the escape from his prison of horrors. Of _hatred._ Finding himself hanging off her life more and more.

There was something about the way she moved. Careful but… _dangerous._ He could see the destruction she was capable of when she trained with her guards, her ability to shoot a moving target from five hundred paces. The _precision._

The way she’d raised her head proudly when a lesser lord had dared question her priorities when she refused to cancel her training in favour of his petty meeting.

“How can I protect my people if I can’t even protect myself?”

He wondered if he’d seen the power before, recognized the ferocity in her gaze.

The equal of his own.

If he had seen her as he did now, her true potential for greatness. If only she could dedicate herself to a juster cause, if she had someone to _show_ her…

 

-

 

Perhaps it was her pride that kept her silent.

It wasn’t that she doubted her handmaidens loyalty, she didn’t. Not even for a _second._ Knowing in her bones they would die for her just as readily as she would die for them if called too. But the thought of sharing this burden with them… it made her blood run cold.

How could she face them again if they knew?

She forced it down, keeping her expression perfectly serene as she went through the motions of inspecting the guards. The same pointless ceremonial duty she’d walked through every Primeday since her coronation suddenly taking on a new edge as she met the eyes of the people she had sworn to protect.

The ones who daily put their lives on the line for her. For what she stood for.

She was lying to them.

Keeping a dangerous truth from them all.

And yet... she could not seem weak in front of them either. Not when the planet needed her to be strong. Not when all the reforms she had fought to make, the good work she had gotten done, would be thrown into question the second her secret was discovered.

All of it could be tainted by this.

And her people would be the ones to suffer from it.

No, better to say nothing.

To keep her secrets her own as she went through her days as if nothing had changed. As if she wasn’t living two lives with every sunset and sunrise.

Nodding to her guard one final time she let herself be swept towards the next thing, a cabinet meeting. Her aide rattling off the rest of the day, a conference with the lord of the City of Keren, shaking hands with a visiting dignitary from Alderaan, another meeting. Then another.

She welcomed it, the constant activity was the only thing keeping her from drowning in what would be awaiting her when the sun set.

How, in the months that followed, she witnessed the boy become the _apprentice._ Seeing again and again the night he was ripped from his life by the man in the cloak. How slowly, with a skill that made her sick, this _Master_ manipulated the boy into adulthood. Twisting his justified rage against an invisible enemy, _the Jedi._

How he was told over and over that they were responsible for all he’d lost.

How Maul began to _believe_ it.

She’d watched fear become a desperation for approval. Seen the way he had been broken down and reformed in the darkness. The hate that had grown in him with each new dawn, the _skill._

That small, secret part of him he denied. The part that _remembered._ His brothers. His mother. His _home._ The rest that knew nothing but strength and fear and the thirst for revenge.

She saw the way he stopped talking to people and started talking to droids.

The moments after the blood shed and bruises when he would turn to the machines. Seeing the care he took when he fixed them, hands that had taken so much life turned instead to _creating_ it. Forming sentience from scraps in the quiet, lonely hours.

The dedication that so well matched her own, even turned as it was towards the dark.

Perhaps the real reason she never said anything was because she doubted anyone else could understand. They hadn’t seen his life _before_ like she had.

They hadn’t seen him fall.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tbc~~~


	4. Some Truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They always ended up here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhh sorry this chapter is a few days late guys! (All six of you still reading that is, you are my heroes btw :-P) But I really hope you like it! <333  
> As always comments are loved more than life, and my eternal thanks goes to Rell for beta'ing this nonsense <333

  


It was no longer enough.

Maul paced the edges of his prison, impatience burning inside of him as he searched for a weakness. Some fault or fracture he could exploit. Anything in order to free himself as the ache built, the silent, scalding need for _more._

For _life._

 _True_ life, not this wretched half-existence, trapped in the divide between real and unreal. A shadow to the living world.

It was as if he was suffocating on his own memories, on the thoughts and visions and faces that stopped up his lungs. Drowning in it. The endless sea of death and destruction. Barely able to keep his head up as he was dragged under the surface again and again by fresh memories of his obedience. Of the faceless master he had given so much of his life too, the one who spoke with cold power. Who wielded a darkness so pure, so _complete,_ he could barely comprehend it.

The man who had taken his freedom and given him purpose in return. _Skill. Power._

Perhaps that had been enough for him before. His loyalty still ran deep, he could feel it in the hollows of his bones but now his connections were... _weakened._ Not even the thought of his revenge could distract him, his desire to strike down whoever had thrown him into this nightmare stagnating as time dragged ever onwards.

His purgatory had changed him.

He wanted more than that now.

The compulsion to speak to _her_ overwhelmed him _._ This true mirror of himself. Opposite in every way and yet somehow… the _same._ He wanted answers to questions he wasn’t sure he’d even formed words for yet.

To look into her eyes and see the recognition in them.

To read the full measure of her soul.

He pushed himself harder. Reached further. Digging his hands into the darkness, clawing away at the numbing divide until his fingers felt like bone and gristle. Stretching through the twisted cord of connection, determined now more than ever to gain her attention.

 

-

 

They always ended up here.

The grimy little cantina on the edge of an alien city, the one they’d circled back to so often over the years that she sometimes forgot it wasn’t her memory to begin with. She could always recall perfectly the over-warm crush of life, the sharp scent of spilled liquor and low-grade spice. Familiar with each patron, each curse and order.

She already knew which people would die, they were the only faces she could remember. It was that way with all of his memories, the faces blurred, slipping from her in the waking world. Except for the dead.

His Master, the one with the voice that made her blood run cold, was the blurriest. She had tried to identify him over and over but she could never keep hold of it, couldn’t recall anything but the strange sick feeling that clenched in the pit of her stomach whenever she was forced through one of those memories. Like if she could only see him clearly she could stop something awful from happening.

That somehow she could save _him._

The figure’s face had only cleared once though, in all the years of all the dreams, and only for a moment during the worst memory. The one she had seen only once. The one where he had _tested_ his apprentice, pushed him too far.

Where Maul had been starved and beaten and yet still survived. Still prevailed. Only to return to his _Master_ to find him colder than ever.

“You have failed me, apprentice.” He had sneered. “You are unworthy. _Weak.”_

She felt the lightning strike him, lit up from the inside as the pain hollowed him out. Ozone and burnt flesh.

And _rejection._

She had truly believed Maul could have killed him then, in the wake of it when he fought back. His anger making him strong. Teeth bared in rage as he’d turned on his Master only to be struck down again, this time with warm smiles and cloying words. To be told that his very willingness to kill had made him worthy after all.

It made her sick.

Made her wish she could have done it for him, finished it then and there. For good.

Her nightmares became daydreams, wistful thoughts about what could have been. Imagining how different it might have turned out if his choices hadn’t been made for him, if his strength had been turned towards something just. Something _real._  

Was it any wonder he had become what he had?

Could she be certain that she would have been anything different if she were in his place?

She felt a distant stab of fear as she shut down the thought, a fresh anxiety working it’s way beneath her skin. The fear of what it meant that she could have such sympathy for _him._ Such empathy for a killer. Because that’s what he was, whether it had been his own choice at first or not.

He had still done those terrible, _unthinkable_ things.

And yet, despite it all, she couldn’t keep from wondering, not anymore. From dreaming about the paths not taken as she circled closer and closer to him every time she closed her eyes, held in a gravity she couldn’t explain. Couldn’t control.

Couldn’t stop any more than she could stop this dream from playing out.

Her heart felt heavier than ever as she crossed through the din, a ghost in his memories. She folded herself down into the booth opposite him, knowing he couldn’t see her any more than he could hear her sigh. She pulled her legs up under her on the grimy leather seat, her cyrene silk nightgown at stark odds with her surroundings.

For a while at least she could sit, watch him unhindered as the chaos reigned around them, wonder how it ever got to this. He was young in his memory, the shadow of the boy still in his features as he sat frozen in place. His hood pulled up high, hands wrapped tight around a drink he wouldn’t touch, one that smelt oddly like cherries and fighter coolant.

Perfectly still and yet brimming with potential energy, potential _danger._ A coiled snake waiting to strike _._ Listening as the raucous conversation of the table behind him spilled over the divide. She knew when it’s occupants had worn themselves out with their bragging and fighting he would follow them out. Slinking like a shadow into the alleyway behind the bar, that he would rip the information from them.

That they would die.

“Why do you do this?” She asked the air as his eyes flickered towards the table behind him. Knowing he would rise at any second, that the dream would end in destruction. Like it always did. “Why can’t you just walk away?”

“You’ve seen why.”

Her heart lurched violently, head jerking back to look at the shadowed figure standing beside her. The one who had never been there before. He was the twin of the man sitting opposite her, identical in every regard. No… _not_ identical. The figure at her side was _older,_ worn in a way the memory wasn’t.

She opened her mouth, pulse racing so hard she could feel it in her throat as he looked right _at_ her...

And then she woke up.

 

-

  


He roared as the figure vanished, the memory twisting, fading into the darkness as he grabbed at the space she had filled. Fingers grasping at the nothingness as void rushed back in.

She had _seen_ him.

It had taken _eons._ Every inch of his strength dedicated to destroying the divide, hacking through the shadows with each night that passed until he could approach her unhindered. Locked on a collision course with fate as he broke through and found her waiting. Her small sigh almost lost beneath the din as he’d pushed through the crowded memory to her side.

 _That_ memory. The one that haunted him more than any other.

His first solo mission. His first taste of true freedom since he had been taken.

His Master wanted information, wanted no trace that it had been taken, and had sent him half-way across the universe to carry out the deed.

He had sworn to escape as a boy. Long before he had learnt the true power of the Sith, the true justice of his adopted cause. In those long nights after he had been taken he had sworn that when that moment came he would walk away. Free himself. Return to his mother, his brothers, gather his forces and strike down the one who had taken him.

But when that moment came… sat in that grim, gritty little bar surrounded by the lowest life forms in the galaxy… A thousand, thousand miles from his Master...

He hadn’t.

Instead he did exactly what he was instructed to. Carried out his mission, returned to his Master.

He had never looked back.

But this time it was different.

This time _she_ was there, in his reach at last. He’d heard the soft sigh of her voice as she’d leant her head against her hand, elbow propped on the grimy table surface. Seen her reading his memory’s face like she _understood._

And he’d seen _it._

The _recognition._

Felt it burn through their connection as she’d looked up at him with those wide, startled eyes.

Then she was _gone._

Vanished.

He drove his fists into the darkness, lashing out through the smoke and nothingness as he tried to feel something. _Anything._ Any vent for the rage that had seized hold of him.

Any distraction from the new thread of fear that had began to knot itself around the very back of his mind.

He was a creature of darkness, he accepted that. He’d seen the way he adopted fear as his god, seen the way he’d made himself into something _fearful_ because of it. How he’d sharpened his horns and blackened his teeth before each battle.

But her god was _justice._ Duty and _kindness._

For the first time in a long time he had found someone he didn’t want to be afraid of him.

And it terrified him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tbc~~


	5. Nights Bright Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What stories could she tell herself now?  
> Ones of wicked princes and sleeping curses and queens?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It only took me five chapters but look - an *actual* conversation happens! :D Hehe I really hope you guys enjoy it <3  
> As always massive thanks to everyone taking the time to read and comment, and my extra special thanks to Rell - for not only being the bestest beta but doing some truly incredible artwork for this fic! (You can find it and fic updates on my tumblr - anonymousmink.tumblr.com, and even *more* incredible artwork on her tumblr - thisismyproblematicblog.tumblr.com <333)

 

She didn’t dream of him again for a fortnight.

Her nights were her own again with all their usual mess of memories and surreal speculations. No blood, no fury or fascination. Her subconscious once more untainted, unsullied...

_Unshared._

Her hands convulsed, clenching tight around the handle of her brush as she dragged it through her curls. Trying to focus on her night time routine and not the empty bed staring at her from across the room. Waiting.

She had simply grown used to him.

That was all.

To the ever changing landscape of his mind, to the thoughts and memories she knew as well as her own. To the presence she had come to expect every time she closed her eyes.

What she couldn’t explain was how she’d woken up every morning since feeling somehow... lacking.

_Disappointed._

Almost as if… she missed him.

The realization left her head ringing. Turning the world surreal as she worked at uncorking one of the various concoctions her handmaidens had arranged for her. Glower serum from Bespin. Slootheberry creme from Alderaan. She dragged the ritual out, trying to banish the fresh anxiety creeping beneath her skin with the familiarity of the motions. Unable to crawl between the sheets just yet.

Not with that thought still circling her like a vulture.

Her ribs turning leaden, weighing her down from the inside as she forced herself to consider it. That she could ever possibly _miss_ something like that, someone like... him. The feeling was made all the worse by the knowledge that she should be grateful for sudden loss of the dreams. Any sane person would be. To be free of the darkness, the endless whirlwind of blood stained memories and regrets.

Free at last from her connection to the man who had murdered her friend without a second thought.

Killed so many. Hurt so many more.

She shouldn’t be _worrying._ She shouldn’t be fighting to stop herself from going down there, from seeing with her own eyes what she’d already checked every single morning on her data-pad. She’d brought up his stats every day since the dreams had stopped, hands trembling as she drew up the medical files and med-droid reports. Opening up the security feed of his room again and again and slamming it closed again as soon as she was certain nothing had changed.

That he slept on undisturbed.

Perhaps she’d seen it all? Explored every secret his mind had to offer.

Perhaps he’d pushed her out. Discovered the extent of what she’d seen and severed the tie between them.

Whatever it was… it made her chest _ache._

Casting aside the vicious circle of her thoughts, she rose from her dressing table at last. There were important meetings waiting for her in the morning. Matters of state, of security, the preparations for the rapidly approaching Peace day. Things that wouldn’t wait just because she had gotten tangled up with the inner life of a monster.

She couldn’t let her personal life affect her planet. Not for a second.

Dropping herself between the sheets she squeezed her eyes shut, burying her head in the pillows as the lights dimmed automatically. Counting silently backwards in her head as she sought out sleep once more. Like her mother had taught her, all those years ago. Back before the crown, when she was just a small, sleepless child.

 _If that doesn’t work sweetling, tell yourself a story._ Her mother had whispered in her soft, still voice as she ran her hand over Padmé’s hair. _Once upon a time…_

What stories could she tell herself now?

Ones of wicked princes and sleeping curses and queens?

No, it was safer to count.

 

-

 

She was walking in a forest.

Lush greenery and towering trees as far as she could see. The air rich with the scent of wild flowers and the far off sickly sweetness of decay in the undergrowth.

The sacred forest, on the far south of Theed…

Her heart sank, falling down in the depths of her rib cage as the disappointment hit. This was her memory. It had to be.

Only…

She frowned, pulse picking up as her gaze tracked over the distant waterfall. The long grass whispering against her skirts as she moved.

She couldn’t remember _this_ part of the forest.

Of being here so late in the day.

_Alone._

Where were her handmaidens? Her retinue?

The clearing was deserted. Her only company was the fireflies that started gathering as the sun began its slow descent in the sky.

Until something _moved._

A shadow, behind her in the trees. Jerking around as her heart leapt up into her mouth, her hand reached automatically for a blaster she didn’t have.

_Maul._

He was there. Standing silently in the darkness, almost… hesitantly. Not the memory this time, but the _man._

Looking right at her.

She could taste the bitter rush of adrenaline, teeth clicking together almost painfully as she took him in. Momentarily stunned by the heady rush of shock and fear and… _relief._  

Slamming down on the thought she forced her hands to relax, drawing herself up to her full height as she tried to calm the thundering of her pulse. Tried to keep the composure that had served her so well as Queen, even as her eyes darted over him without her permission. Tracing his features as if she hadn’t long since memorized them.

“Is this memory mine or yours?” She heard herself ask, the words strong, _calm._ Even if she was feeling anything but, all too acutely aware of her own vulnerability without her guards, her crown, her war paint.

He was silent for long enough to make her doubt that her words had reached him at all. Shivers racing down the back of her neck as they faced each other from across the clearing, the air turning static against her skin.

“Mine, I believe.”

The response shuddered through her. The sound of his voice jarring her as he gestured towards the trees on the other side of the clearing.  She doubted she'd ever get used to it, the hushed, deep timbre more suited to a holonet star than a… than _him._ It somehow sounded so much more real when the words were free from the confines of his memories.

When they were aimed at her.

Steeling herself she wrapped her arms around her waist, fists clenched tight against her ribs as she took two small steps forward. Heart thundering as she looked away from him at last, peering quickly in the direction he had indicated even as her mind raced onwards. Adrenaline spiking.

Could he hurt her in a dream?

Would he _want_ to?

Her eyes darted across the forest. The plants grew thicker there, _darker,_ shadowing a second form. The _other_ him. The version from the past. He was almost invisible beneath the low hanging branches, the dim light of a data pad picking up the red between his markings as he examined the schematics of the city.

 _Her_ city.

“This is during the invasion.” She breathed, looking up sharply when she realized her feet had carried her closer to the _real_ Maul than she had intended. As if she’d become trapped by some unknown gravity, pulled by strings she couldn’t see.

There had been so much she wanted to say to him. To scream at him. To demand answers, _justice._ She’d written essays, _epics,_ in her head on what she’d say. Only now, looking up into strangely cautious yellow-red eyes the words evaporated.

He was a killer, a monster.

He was her constant companion.

“I don’t remember.”  He replied, so solemnly it made her heart stutter. A sudden, still intensity lighting his features as he looked down at her. An almost cat like curiosity, razor sharp and inescapable as he trapped her with his gaze. “Is that when it happened?”

“When what happened?” Wariness flickered through her, fighting to hold her ground as he took a slow step towards her. Reading her face in a way no one else would _dare._

“Whatever it was that trapped me _here._ ”

She swallowed hard as the realization hit her.

_He didn’t know._

-

 

It had taken him lifetimes, _eternities,_ to find his way back here.

Fumbling with the connection as his rage, his _desperation,_ made him clumsy. Erratic. Fighting himself for control even as he grew more and more desperate with each day she failed to appear.

Had something happened?

Had someone else seen the weaknesses in her defenses as he had? An enemy of her kingdom, a rival for her throne?

Could they have struck her down?

The images haunted him, conjured up in glorious technicolour across the void between his memories. Her porcelain painted face splattered with blood, blending into the markings of her station. Those wide, intense eyes slack… lifeless.

And him… _helpless._ Trapped and bound in this _nothing,_ unable to stop it.

Consumed by rage.

A whiplash of destruction so dark, so _complete_ had swallowed him, turning his insides to coal. Burning him up from within as he searched harder for any trace of her. Struggling through the numbing divide to find anything he could cling too, even as another thought chased it.

Barely more than a whisper and yet somehow just as destructive as the first. A far more intimate horror.

Maybe _she_ had pushed him out.

Found a way to block him from her thoughts. Perhaps she’d grown tired of his nightmares, the endless turmoil of his thoughts. Perhaps she had grown too afraid of him to stand another night in his company...

He blocked it out, all of it, focusing only on discovering her. On getting his answers.

Only now, stood before her at last in the lengthening shadows, he seemed capable of doing little more than _staring_.

Unsteady, unsettled.

She was so much more vital than he remembered. So desperately alive. He could practically hear her heart beating as she watched him. Guarded, wary, but with a faint colour blossoming high in her cheeks as he moved towards her.

As he sought his answers from her eyes.

He needed to know.

This final truth about what had happened. How he had been trapped in this inbetween… with _her_. What it was that had so inexorably tangled his life with someone he still couldn't remember ever having met before.

Maybe then he could _undo_ it. Free himself and find her in the waking world.

Maybe then he could discover just how deep this connection ran.

He reached for her, unable to stop himself now he was so close. Like there were magnets under his skin, calling out for their opposites in her. For a second he thought she would allow it, seeing the indecision in her wide eyes as she looked up at him. Something he could almost mistake as _want_ as they stood trapped in an endless hushed second.

Then she was flinching away.

The moment shattered. His pulse thundered like an engine in his skull as he drew back, hand clenching at his side as if he had burned himself. Of course she had drawn away. He was a monster to her, a cautionary tale.

“You're afraid of me.” He said, a flat statement.

“Perhaps.” The faint tremor in her voice cut him deeper than he cared to admit, but there was fire in her eyes still. A determination that couldn't be repressed as she jerked her chin up. “After all there are things you… you haven't _seen_ yet.”

“Did I hurt you?” The thought sank its claws into the soft parts of him he thought he’d long since killed off. He had hurt countless people, had done it well. Easily. But this… this would have been _low_ in a way the other deaths had not been. In a way he couldn’t explain.

“You didn't touch me.” Her words were quiet, hollow. He fought the urge to reach for her again as the low sun became a halo behind her.

It wasn't an answer. It wasn’t a _no._

There were other ways he could have hurt her after all. Something more than cuts or bruises. Something infinitely sadder.

His chest tightened.

“But there is something…” He murmured. “I killed someone, someone you… _cared_ for.”

The word stuck in his throat, grating through him. Tasting bitterness at the thought of _someone else_ . A boy. A _betrothed_ perhaps _,_ some unworthy child he had taken from her.

Someone he had damaged her with.

“My friend.” She met his eye, fierce and vulnerable at once as she faced him without flinching. “A Jedi, sworn to protect me and my _home._ You hunted him down without mercy, as your _Master_ would have wanted.” Her words cut through him, quiet and bitter. Acid in his veins as her eyes shuttered, the mask of the queen falling back into place. Leaving him strangely bereft. “That was when _it_ happened. His apprentice struck you down after... you've been sleeping ever since.”

The pain flared again, lancing him right through the centre. Burning hotter this time, sparking at the revenge that still burnt in his heart. The _Jedi._ He had been taught to hate them, to despise them more deeply than anything else.

The thought that some mere _apprentice_ could have done this to him… it was more than he could stand. For a moment he thought he could almost remember it but it flickered out before he could grasp it. The memory around them tilting darkly as he fought to anchor his mind. To keep them grounded when it could all so easily fade again.

Unwilling to let her go so soon, not now he’d gotten back to her at last.

Unbidden, another thought occurred. His gaze shooting up to her as it hit him, driving the rage away so suddenly he was left reeling.

“And you?” He asked, unable to keep himself from pacing closer again. Needing to see her eyes, her face, as he asked the question he feared the answer to the most. “Was I sent to kill you too?”

“I don't know.” She replied honestly. Sadness radiating from her, echoing into the deepest reaches of his bones. “But I think so.”

“I’m sorry.”

 


	6. Truth Hath Better Deeds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The seed of another thought unfurled between his ribs. An echo so faint he barely heard it over his own heartbeat.  
> What might he be with her?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is getting surprisingly long for something I insisted was gonna be a one shot! ;-) Still I hope you're all still enjoying it as much as I am! As always your comments are treasured beyond measure, I'm so glad there are a few of you still left in this bucket of a ship with me! ;-)
> 
> And massive thanks OBVS to Rellasauraus-Rex, for not only betaing this beautifully but enduring my endless monologues on facetime about these stylish star baes! :-P

 

 

 _I_ _’m sorry._

The words lingered long after she had vanished from the memory, snatched away to the waking word before his eyes.

He was alone with them. Aching. The apology hung heavy around his neck, dragging him deeper into the void. Almost as if by acknowledging his own fault he had given the memories new life. Flashing past him with a relentless sort of finality.

His Master. The blue-prints. The desert.

He saw it all in rapid succession. The new fragments cutting their way into the tapestry he had made of his life. Slicing deeper and deeper inside of him with every heartbeat she was gone. Hurtling him towards the end. _The_ _incident._ A furious tension snapping inside him as he experienced it all anew.

_Capture the Queen. Kill the Jedi._

His Master’s voice settled over him like a frost, freezing the blood in his veins. Skin blackening, peeling away as he followed his own shadow onwards. Unable to break free from it even as he watched his past self spiral. Knowing already it could only end in _darkness._

In _this._

He saw the planning, the preparation. Saw the way that, despite all the files he’d read and  footsteps he’d shadowed, he underestimated her entirely. Overlooked her without a second thought, too intent of his own revenge.

On the _Jedi._

Consumed with the need to destroy them, seized with the cold fire of a true fanatic as he planned it over and over. His life narrowing down in front of him to one goal and one alone.

One act of _revenge._

As if every terrible thing that had been done to him, that he had done to _others,_ could be made right with their deaths.

The abduction, the torture, the _killing._ Every scar he had received. Every scar he had given. It would all be worthwhile if he could just destroy them. His soul washed clean in the blood of the corrupt Jedi Order. The ones he blamed for it all.

And the girl queen… she was just _collateral._ An after thought. A means to an end.

He felt sick. Glad for the first time that she _wasn’t_ here for this. The woman that she had become. Glad that she didn’t have to see it like he was.

Because the rage was _still_ there. Despite everything he’d seen and heard. It echoed up from his hollows at the very _thought_ of the Jedi. An unquenchable thirst to kill those he had named his enemy. The ones that had struck him down.

But it wasn’t _enough._

Not now he knew what had caused his hatred. What it had cost him.

His past taking on new shading. Cold and strange as he saw how easily he had dismissed _her._ How easily he could have killed her. Snuffed out her life force and moved on, as if it was nothing.

As if _she_ was nothing.

It gathered in the pit of him, sick and spiralling as he imagined it.

It would have been _wrong,_ there was no doubt in him about that. She was to be _respected._ A creature of fire, like him, of strength and determination. Whether he agreed with her causes or not that fact remained unchanged.

But to admit that he had been wrong… to concede that his order, his _Master,_ was fallible…

The thought cramped up inside of him, prickling beneath his skin. A knee-jerk tug of loyalty fighting the harsh twist of guilt that kicked in his gut. Somehow more separate from his memories than ever before, viewing them through fresh eyes.

Seeing the cracks in them.

The flaws and missteps and… _regrets._

He regretted this.

And if he regretted this… if he was truly wrong _…_ what _else_ might he have been wrong about?

He had never doubted his purpose, had never let himself. He was built to serve. The true right hand. The necessary evil. He was blood and _justice._ He had seen himself give his life to one cause after the other. His mother and the night witches, his Master.

_Who was he without them?_

Without the family that had surrendered him to his abductor.

Without the Master who had abandoned him to the void.

The seed of another thought unfurled between his ribs. An echo so faint he barely heard it over his own heartbeat.

_What might he be with her?_

 

-

 

Padmé was losing the fight with herself.

The apology _haunted_ her. The solemn honesty. He had given no justification for it, not that night or the nights that followed. The ones they spent in quiet contemplation, each circling the other in the every changing landscape of his mind.

She wanted to pound her fists into him, to curse and cry and _hurt_ him. To make him feel her pain as surely as she had felt his. To mete out some worthy justice for his crimes, rebalance the scales of the universe. Make things right.

_She wanted to forgive him._

Her sympathy tore at her.

It seemed _obscene_ that she should feel such compassion for a man who had done so much evil in his life. Evil she had witnessed first hand. But she couldn’t stop it, couldn’t repress it. Not when it felt so natural to be around him, right in the quiet, subtle kind of way no amount of time or effort could emulate.

They could be _silent_ together. A solidarity she had found almost impossible to find in the waking world. He never pushed, never pressed. No ulterior motive or agenda in the few words they spoke to each other. Just them, alone, skirting around each other's pasts in the darkness.

It was… easy.

_Too easy._

And it frightened her.

She tried to stop it, reminding herself every time she shut her eyes of the memory they would have to face eventually. The one she still hadn’t seen.

The death of her sworn guardian. Her _friend._

He had been a kind man, a _good_ man, and Maul had killed him without a second thought. He would have killed them all.

She forced herself to remember the funeral pyre, the hollow look in Obi-Wan’s eyes as his hand clenched a little bit too tightly around his new apprentice’s shoulder. She remembered the smell of death.

And yet still…

She couldn’t hate Maul. Not anymore, not now she _knew_ him. Not after she’d seen the man behind the monster, the boy who had become so much more than the fire-eyed demon of her nightmares.

Her gaze flickered over to him again in the half-darkness. They were in his ship this time, his past echo sitting cross legged across from them. Working on the probe droids she remembered seeing in the desert so very long ago.

It was a welcome respite, they had seen too much recently. Their memories meeting, mingling as their time lines converged at last. The escape from Naboo. The fight in the dunes. Rushing back and forwards through time until she was dizzy with it.

This was simpler. _Quieter._

She’d perched herself at the edge of his bunk, all of the other furniture covered in scrap parts and circuitry. Maul paced the edge of the room, a caged animal, all restrained power and feral grace before he settled at last at her side. Leaning against the red-tinged metal of the wall as they watched his past self work. The sparks of his sol-iron dancing in the air, casting new shadows across his heavily tattooed torso. The ship silent apart from the scrape of metal and the occasional quiet mutter when the machine wouldn’t do as he wished.

Each of them lost in their own contemplation.

She couldn’t keep from wondering what was going to become of her if she continued down this path. What would become of _him._

The thought left her cold. She had less than a year left after all, and no guarantee that the next monarch wouldn't just… toss him aside. Give him up at the first opportunity and save them all the time and expense of his upkeep.

Kill him in his sleep.

She could taste metal in her mouth. An unexpected jolt of fear rushing her at the thought of it, and then something else… something even more pervasive. Even more _destructive._

Something that tasted almost like _jealousy._

Would the next Queen share the dreams too?

Would they see the things she had seen? _Feel_ it like she had?

In whatever sick way he had become _hers._ Her burden. Her responsibility.

Her secret.

The thought of anyone else knowing him like this, soul-deep and terrifyingly intimate, felt wrong to her. Bile rising in the back of her throat as she tried to focus her attention on the scene and not the fear congealing in her veins.

“Something is troubling you.”

Her heart turned over, the murmur shocking her from her thoughts and back into the moment. Dragging her attention up to the shadow at her side.

For a moment she couldn’t make sense of the words, truly lost as she tried to find some answer in him. Seeking a resolution in his face but finding nothing but concern.

“Yes.” She replied honestly, offering no more as she rose instinctively, the memory shifting around them. The ground tilted beneath her as the ship vanished, metal became marble underfoot as the air came alive with sound.

The sound of engines roaring to life, shouts and plans and laser fire.

_The hangar._

“Oh.” She sighed feeling the weariness sinking through her, accompanied by a squeeze of guilt that was becoming far too familiar. Her own face looked back at her now. Not blurred like the others but crystal clear and unbearably young. Unexpectedly _fierce_ as she stormed through the hangar, guns blazing. “ _This_ memory.”

“I haven’t seen it before.” His eyes drifted away for a moment, reading the scene with lightning fast precision before settling back on hers. The full focus of his gaze leaving her stunned. “Is this how we met?”

She shook her head as his echo appeared, forcing her eyes away as she struggled for balance. It was like being looked at by the sun sometimes, too bright. Too _blinding._ Like he could see _everything._ Everything she tried to hide, the darkness, the fear of who she was underneath the make up.

She fixed her eyes on his past instead, watching as he ignited his saber. As he challenged the Jedi. Her shadow going one way and his… his going another.

“We never met.” She said, turning back at last. Trying to reconcile this man with the one snarling across the hangar. With the boy she’d seen suffer so much. “Not formally.”

He seemed poised to say something, that strange introspection falling across his features again as he took in her words. Then, surprising her completely, he offered her his hand instead.

“Maul.” He murmured, so low she could barely hear him over the blaster fire and shouting. His gaze almost painfully intense as he stretched towards her. “Just... Maul.”

She couldn’t keep from gaping. She’d been introduced to lords and ladies, senators and chancellors and kings. But this… this left her reeling. Her fingertips tingling strangely as she reached slowly for his offered hand. If she had any sense left in her she’d stop this now before it was too late, force herself awake and never sleep again.

She’d _learn_ from the battle raging around them.

Instead she slipped her hand into his, the chaos of the hangar fading away as he wrapped his long fingers around hers.

“Padmé Amidala, of the house of Nabarrie.” She replied, almost forgetting her names as the heat washed through her. “Elected Queen of Naboo.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TBC~~~


	7. Such Stuff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His world tilted on its axis.  
> Her words vanishing as everything changed in the split second it took for her to place her fingers in his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Omg guys I can't believe we're on chapter seven already! Ahhh and here's me promising it would be a short fic :-P  
> But yeah, I seriously wanna thank everyone for reading & commenting so far - I know I keep saying this but I honestly cannot tell you how much it means to me. It's literally the best feeling in the world to know you're still enjoying this madness <333
> 
> And Rellerina you are just the bestest beta and person ever and there's no way I would be writing *at all* this year without you <333

  


His world tilted on its axis.

Her words vanishing as everything changed in the split second it took for her to place her fingers in his.

The warmth was electric, spiking through him like a live current as everything else dissipated. It shot over every nerve with an intensity that bordered on painful _._ Like he was feeling, truly feeling, for the first time in his life.

He felt… he felt almost _alive._

For a moment he was aware of _everything,_ every bone in his body aching. Warm skin and cool air and bright lights searing through his closed eyelids. A whirr of unfamiliar machinery. The unbearable sting of antiseptic in the air.

Like somehow her very touch was anchoring him. Grounding him to the plane beyond his world, the one outside of the blood and memories. The darkness.

_Freedom._

She drew back, folding her hand away and the feeling was gone. Rushing out until nothing remained, suddenly unbearable in its emptiness. The void crushing him in the wake of _reality._

He followed her without thinking, frustration reverberating through his chest as he reached for her again. Grasping for the connection. Willing to burn up entirely for another taste of it. He grazed his palms over her hands, her arms, the painfully soft skin where her neck met her shoulder and into the silk of her hair. Chasing the feeling as the hunger surged. The faint trace of reality flickering and sparking as he pulled her closer still.

 

-

 

He was everywhere.

Branding her in each place their skin met. Filling her head, her space, broad fingers tracing a desperate path across her skin. One hand splaying across her back as he drew her inexorably closer until she was _breathing_ him.

For a moment she could only feel. Gasping as he rode rough-shod over her senses, a painful intensity swelling inside of her chest as he seemed to almost claim her.

Then reality kicked in.

And she kicked back.

She slammed her fists into his shoulders. _Hard._ Struggling backwards until she had enough leeway to land a blow to his solar plexus, her training taking over as she fought her way free. Her heart beating fit to burst as she stumbled away from him.

Anger chased through her, confusion creasing her brow as she struggled for control of herself. _What was he thinking?_ Grabbing her like that… _how dare he?_ She forced her back straight, jerking her chin high in the air as she glared up at him.

“What was _that?_ ” She demanded, voice shaking ever so slightly as she faced him. Heat flushing through her with the rage, the _uncertainty._ Still she refused to look away, to show any weakness now, even as her skin still burnt with the memory of his touch.

“Didn't you feel it?” There was a desperation in him, a half snarl in his voice that had her heart thundering. She saw it sparking in his eyes, the _hunger,_ but then… his expression shuttered. The fire extinguished, burning out all at once as he bowed his head. A momentary look of shock flashing across his features as he moved away from her. Stilted and formal. “Forgive me your highness, I did not mean to overstep.”

“What did you mean...” She pressed, curiosity rising from beneath the anger as he turned away. He looked strangely contrite in the dim light of their memories. “What did you feel?”

“ _Reality._ ” The word was hushed, fervent in a way that shook Padmé to her core as he looked back to her at last. “I think... you could wake me from _this_.”

She jerked back, swallowing hard at the quiet revelation. Her pulse racing so fast she was terrified he could hear it in the all encompassing hush of the moment, barely noticing that the memory had changed. That now they stood on a catwalk overlooking the generator complex. The only sound the quiet buzz of the force fields working their rotations **.**

“ _How?_ ”

He tilted his head, the glow of the plasma settling over him as he contemplated his answer. Turning his eyes into starbursts as a seriousness settled over him, sparking as they drifted over her features.

Too _intimate._

“I think,” he replied after an eternity, “if you were close enough to me… out _there,_ wherever I really am... you could wake me. Your touch...”

Her heart stuttered.

She could wake him.

Something tightened inside her chest, painful and fragile and desperate. Something like _hope._ There could be an end to his torment, both of them free at last from this nightmare world. Sinking her teeth into her lip, she stepped forward without thinking. Reaching for him.

A shout cut through the air.

A cry of fear so complete it sent her stumbling, her feet tangling in the too-long hem of her nightgown. Quick hands caught her as she wavered at the edge of the catwalk, pulling her back from the void below. Her stomach swooped, knees weakening as she was confronted with the sudden drop.

His fingers tightened around her shoulders. Keeping her steady, pressed tight against his frame as adrenaline flooded her veins. As she looked _up,_ finding the cause of the sound...

As she watched the other Maul run Qui Gon through with his blade.

 

-

 

It was different this time. He couldn’t quite feel it the way he had before, the sting of reality. But something about her… it made him feel _alive._ Creating a new sort of urgency in him as he held her steady. His chest still tight with the fear that had seized him as he’d watched her stumble on the edge of eternity. The drop bringing with it a hideous sense of foreboding.

Her warmth spread through him, taking root beneath his skin as he forced himself to focus on the memory. As he followed her gaze upwards.

This was _it._

The moment. He couldn’t look away. His pulse beating out of sync with the rasp of his breath as he watched the scene play out. Feeling it all again, the rage, the _hunger._ His hands burning with the memory of the over-heated metal of his lightsaber, jarring sharply against the contrasting sensation of soft skin beneath his palms where he was holding onto her still _._

Her horror mixed with the thumping, bursting _pride_ he’d felt when he’d watched the light die in the old Jedi’s eyes.

Her anguish a heady backdrop as he saw the dedication in his own eyes, the need for more. Arrogant beyond belief, intoxicated with his own power as he turned his attention against the younger one.

_Reckless._

His guard slackened, the edges of his stance unfinished. Too many gaps in his defence. His surroundings unclear, seeing in slow motion the moment he lost. When the Jedi fell only to rise again.

The blow crippled him all over again. A white-hot burn that split him in two where he stood, his fingers clenched involuntarily around her shoulders as the pain flooded him. Feeling himself failing, _falling…_

His whole life turning to ashes before his eyes.

She was moving in his grip but he couldn’t focus on it. Couldn’t fix himself on her as she turned towards him. He was unable to speak, to _think_ through the numbness as her angry eyes met his. The last thing he saw was her, reaching for him across the sudden gaping divide that separated them. Pale cheeks stained with salt, her expression turning to concern, to _fear._

He almost let himself imagine it was for him.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TBC ~~~


	8. Given Unsought

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bright rockets burst across the sky in a hail of sparks, splashing red light into the recesses of the doorway. Forming a familiar face in the shadows.  
> She made her decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy holidays everyone! Sorry there was a delay in posting this chapter but it's extra long to make up for it! <333 I really hope you enjoy it - your comments mean the world to me! :D
> 
> My Holly Jolly Rellmas! Merry Christmas darling and thanks as always for your beautiful beta skills <3

  


Padmé felt like she was drowning.

Waking as if she was breaking the surface, lungs filled with black water as she shot upright in her bed, limbs flailing, tangling in silk sheets as she reached for him still. Stretching back into the darkness as she watched him sink. The image of his fall burnt bright against the backdrop of her retinas.

She couldn’t unsee it.

The terror in his eyes, the _hopelessness._

The memory suffocated her even as she gasped in the sudden onslaught of brightness. Sucking in fresh air and the sweet scent of millaflowers by the mouthful. Choking on a sob she couldn’t let out. Swallowing it down as she realized at last where she was.

 _Who_ she was.

Her handmaidens were already there. Sabé busying herself with the curtains as Eirtaé and Rabé went through the careful dance of laying out the day’s clothes. The silks and tassels falling from their hands as Padmé tore herself free of the covers.

“Your Majesty?” The title stabbed at her as Sabé rushed to her side. The others already searching the shadows for any source of a threat. “What is it?”

Padmé scrubbed her palms across her eyes, disorientated. Trying to force herself into stillness, into the skin of the other woman. The _Queen_ they needed. Taking a shuddering breath as she fought to lock it all away, all the pain and heartache of the other world. The memory pushed back behind the mask even as she felt like she was bleeding inside. Like something had finally broken that she couldn’t fix.

“Nothing.” She heard herself say aloud, her shoulders straightening as she found her composure at last. Offering a porcelain smile to her most trusted advisors, even as their concern tore at her. Turning her guilt into lead. “I had a bad dream, that’s all.”

She held her breath as the almost-lie rolled of her tongue, trying to project the warm reassurance needed to make them believe it as she pulled herself to her feet.

They were her dearest friends after all, her most loyal body guards. They knew her better than anyone else.

At least they had done…

Now… now she wasn’t so sure. Wasn’t sure anyone could know her as well as _he_ did.

Padmé doubted that Maul would have been so easily fooled. If he was still even… she cut the thought off, stamping down on the fear. The deep-rooted darkness that weaved its way between her ribs as she saw the fall again. Incapable of believing that anyone could have survived it, even him.

Even when she knew that he _had._

She excused herself, locking herself in her private washroom and letting herself feel the desperation at last. Hands shaking as she pulled the hidden datapad from the cabinet above the sink, going through every feed. Every log. Tearing apart the data from the hospital wing searching for the cause of her fear.

Only… there was none.

He slept on, untouched. His vitals steady, his scans normal.

Nothing had changed.

_Yet._

Letting out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding she stored the datapad away, confronting her reflection at last. The pale creature in the looking glass, wild eyed and dishevelled. It wouldn’t do. Breathing deeply, she splashed her face with icy water. Pulling herself together before reentering the fray.

She put herself in the care of her handmaidens. Trying to sink into the familiar chatter of voices even as her thoughts circled around her new dilemma.

_She could save him._

They had asked her before… the physicians in that cold, bright room. Standing over the bloodied halves of the man who had caused their pain, split open like so much meat on the operating table.

When they’d told her he was alive.

When they asked if they should spare him.

She'd said yes then. No matter how much it had weighed on her. It wasn't their place to decide who was worth saving or not.

But now…

Now she was the one asking. The one deciding whether to wake him or let him live on in his damnation. Whether seven years in the hell of his own mind could ever be punishment enough for the evil he’d worked in his lifetime.

As a Queen her choices were restricted, curbed by the weight of her office. It would be the best thing for the most people if he _never_ woke up. If he could never cause any more harm, take any more lives.

If she woke him and he did…

It would be on _her._

Their blood on her hands.

Her head pounded, almost dizzy with her own indecision as she was lead through the morning routine. Standing dutifully as hands pulled at her hair, her clothes, half way through being laced into her most formal robes before she even thought to question why they had woken her so early.

Why they were dressing her in the blush white ceremonial gown, dusted with veda pearls and embroidered with the ancient symbols of her people. A dress only suited for the most joyous of celebrations and a stark contrast to the darkness of her thoughts.

“What’s the occasion?” She asked distantly as Sabé wove the silver coronet into her hair, trying to unscrambled her thoughts long enough to remember whatever important meeting or banquet she had forgotten.

The combs fell from her handmaiden’s grasp.

“Majesty…  are you sure you’re alright?” Sabé took her hand, squeezing it. The face that looked so much like Padmé’s own creasing in concern. “It’s not like you to forget…”

“It’s the Day of Peace.” Eritaé added carefully, casting aside her basket of silks in favour of reaching for her commlink. “Should I summon the physician?”

“No-” Padmé scrabbled for composure, eyes widening as she waved a hand at her helpers. “No, really I’m fine. Of course it’s the Day of Peace,” She nodded as if she'd known all along. As if she hadn’t forgotten the most important day in the planet’s calendar. “I was just up too late with the Jan-Gwa Accords. That’s all, I’ll be fine as soon as I get some caf in me."

She fixed on her warmest smile as her handmaiden rushed to ring for some from the kitchens. Telling herself silently that she could do this, cast aside the indecision eating at her insides like acid. That she could hold it together for twelve more hours.

Be the Queen her people needed her to be.

At least until night fell again and she had to decide.

 

-

 

It wouldn’t stop.

He was trapped, lost, falling further and further into the void. No memories to ground himself with now. No faces or rooms or stars. Nothing but the numbness of the burn. A distant throbbing pain that divided him, seeming to strengthen with the faint echoing buzz of plasma that filled his head. 

Becoming unbearable as the hours became eternities. 

He tore hopelessly at the nothingness, reaching for anything that might save him until his hands had cramped up into claws. The tangled threads of his sanity fraying, unravelling by the second as he tried to curl himself inwards, to protect his insides, but his limbs were someone else’s. 

Alien. Unforgiving. 

Leaving him unable to do anything but sink into the nauseous weightlessness that came with the fall. 

The endless, _endless_ fall. 

His thoughts darkened, twisting against him. He wondered if this is how _they_ felt, the others. The ones whose lives he had taken like spilling water. If this was his true punishment, the horrors of his memories paling into insignificance before this new torment. 

The pain grew. Stretching until it filled every inch of him, until he felt his skin might burst with it. 

Until he wished that he _had_ died. 

That he _could_ die. 

Willing to trade anything just to sink into the blackness and never feel anything again. 

And Padmé… 

Padmé was _gone._

 

-

 

The dream stalked her. 

Chasing her through the blur of speeches and meetings and feasts that ruled her day. A grim reminder at the edge of her thoughts of all that this occasion stood for. 

All that the city had forgotten. 

Her people were so swept up in the ceremony, the _celebration_ , that they barely registered the price it had cost them. The bones their banquets were built on. 

It was only the years of training kept her walking. Kept her steady, her words clear and true as she spun speeches about the glorious liberation of their people. Of the new age of freedom their planet was living in. Letting her become the creature her people needed her to be, even as she felt the tear inside of her grow. 

The hollow fear as she relived the nightmare again behind her eyelids. 

Qui Gon… Obi Wan… 

 _Maul._  

She saw them in the faces of every advisor. The hum of the orchestra becoming the sound of the generator complex. The buzz of chatter becoming the clash of lightsabers. 

The decision growing heavier and heavier until she could barely breathe through it by the time the last bell rang. Dismissing her hand maidens with it, every offer rejected, every cajoling plea for further excitement firmly denied. 

She stole away to her quarters instead. Her stomach clenching tighter with each step, as if her insides had already decided she was going the wrong way. That she should be going _downwards,_ closer to the hospital wing, not further away.  

It, _he,_ pulled at her, magnets in her heels as she scrubbed her face clean of her make up. Pulling the combs from her hair and restraining it in a more sensible style. Tying the bands tightly, too tightly, as if she could tie off the urge to go down _there_ with it.

Lock it all away just for a little while. 

Just until she’d considered it, really considered it. 

What it would mean if she woke him up, what it would mean if she _didn’t._  

She stepped out onto her balcony, welcoming the shock of the cold. Letting it sweep the exhaustion away as she breathed it in. As she tried to let herself be _other_ woman once more. 

The one who _knew_ him. _Maul._ The one who had felt his pain, his ambition. Who had seen it all and gone back to stand beside him anyway. The girl who understood what it was to lose yourself in the expectations of others. Who believed in hope above all else.  

She couldn’t deny the truth of it anymore. 

The years had changed her. The _dreams_ had changed her. 

Whatever cord had tied them had grown stronger without her noticing. A creeping vine that blossomed in all her darkest hollows, shifting and growing until it had wrapped itself into the very core of her being. 

Right or wrong she had come to care almost as much for the killer as the killed. 

An explosion rang overhead, adrenaline spiking through her as it shuddered through the masonry. Bright rockets bursting across the sky in a hail of sparks, splashing red light into the recesses of the doorway. Forming a familiar face in the shadows. 

Her stomach lurched, heart suddenly beating like a wild thing as she steadied herself against the stone. 

She had made her decision. 

 

-

 

He couldn’t give up. 

Not after all he’d seen. 

All they’d been through. 

He couldn’t let the creeping terror that had slipped in with the pain _win._ The fear rising as he sank further and further into the darkness. His head echoing, _ringing,_ with whispered voices telling him she wouldn’t return. Not after what she’d seen. Promising him that she would abandon him to his nightmares, as his Master had.

As his family had.

How could she not?

He was a killer. He was her nightmares.

He couldn’t listen to them. Squeezing his eyes shut against the nothingness he tried to conjure the image of her in his head.

The naive, fragile, steel-strong creature he had come to know. With all her foolish hopes and beliefs and _fire._ A thousand contradictions burning behind her eyes. Determination and vulnerability.

One thing she wasn’t though was _cruel._

Not like he could be.

If anyone would come for him, if anyone could save him…

It would be her.

 

-

 

It was almost too easy to slip down through the palace. Certain she could navigate it blindfolded if she had too, every corridor tattooed into the backs of her eyelids. Every guard post marked and monitored. Her formal cape swapped for one of the robes her handmaidens favoured. Navy velvet buckled tight over the pale silk of her gown, making it almost impossible to distinguish her from any other handmaiden returning from the celebrations.

They wouldn’t guess who she really was.

What she was _really_ doing.

Who would?

Who would ever suspect that the woman navigating the back corridors of the palace like she was born to them was really their Queen on a mission to wake a monster.

She could taste bitter adrenaline on her tongue as she slipped into the hushed world of the hospital wing. Unseen, unnoticed. Her throat tight with anxiety as she pushed into his room, closing the door firmly behind her.

The bright white lights stung her eyes as she crept across the tiled floor. Unable to look away from the sight of her fallen enemy.

Her... _friend._

He was almost exactly as she remembered him.

She had thought he might have withered, sunken with time and age but he hadn't. The medical droids keeping him in an near perfect form of statis. Only now there was a puckered pink ridge of flesh cutting across his waist, silver gleaming from the edges where they’d woven cybernetics into his damaged nerves. The scar standing out in stark contrast to his skin, pale and jagged against the red.

It was the only sign of what had befallen him.

Otherwise he might just have been sleeping.

Unbidden the memories rose again, the stories her mother had told her all of those years ago. A wicked prince, a sleeping curse… a touch.

When this had started she had thought _she_ was the cursed. Some misdeed in her past come back to haunt her, to compel her to endure the endless nightmares. But that was before _._ Before the dreams unraveled. Before she knew the man at their heart. Before...

Before she’d come to _need_ them.

Him.

She swallowed hard. No, she wasn’t the cursed. She was the hero… she could be the hero. She just wished she could remember how the story had ended, if the evil fairy got her comeuppance. If the cursed prince was saved.

Joy or tragedy.

The thought sat heavy on her, she knew all too well that real life wasn’t in the habit of dealing out happy endings.

Not to stories like this.

Gathering her courage she approached the bed. Maker, he was so much _realer_ here. Surreal and strange and so familiar she could barely stand it, her palms suddenly itching with the need to touch him even as the heat rose high in her cheeks. She remembered all the _other_ times she’d seen him like this. In the long night hours. Shirtless, training, resting. She had grown almost _too_ familiar with the hard cut of his torso, the intricate dance of his markings.

She turned her gaze upwards, unable to keep her hand from stretching out, skin tingling in the cool antiseptic air. A shiver racing across her as her fingers drifted closer and closer to his still form. Poised above his face.

She hesitated, teetering on the edge of the unchangeable as she traced his features again with her eyes.

There was no going back now.

Swallowing her fear she made her choice, pressing through the last inch of space between them and touching him at last. His cheek was warm beneath her palm, her skin burning at the contact as she exhaled in a hard rush.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tbc ~~~


	9. Ever Precise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first breath was fire in his lungs.  
> A world of spinning disorientation as every sense came alive at once. Too bright. Too cold. Too real.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guyyyyys, a new year, a new chapter - seems fitting right? :-P As always I wanna thank every single one of you who is still reading this, especially those taking the time to comment! Nothing gets me quite as inspired as knowing you guys are still enjoying this nonsense ;-) Happy New Yearrrrrr! <333
> 
> Captain Rellaway, O Beta my Beta. We may have *almost* derailed this chapter with the Rock's papoose but we got there in the end! Love you weirdo! <3

 

 

The first breath was fire in his lungs.

A world of spinning disorientation as every sense came alive at once. Too bright. Too cold. Too _real._ Plastifilm suffocating his skin, metal pressed against his back, needles jammed into his veins.

Instinct took over.

He reacted, muscle memory and fear holding him together as he was forced into the waking world. No memory of who he was, where he was. Lost. _Damaged._ Blind from the harsh overhead lights as adrenaline flooded his system, hearts frantic with it as he lashed out. Limbs thrashing, not quite his own as he struggled to see. To _understand._

 _Find the danger._ His instincts screamed as he ripped the med-patches from his stinging flesh. _Neutralize the threat. Escape. Escape. Escape._

_“Maul.”_

The word froze him.

The _name._

 _His_ name.

There was a woman in the room with him, the bright blur fading enough that he could make her out. Pale face. Dark eyes. Sharp, startled, _scared._ He felt her emotions rolling around in his skull like marbles and, so suddenly it left him reeling, the memories of the _other_ place returned.

The darkness, the fall. The years he’s spent before it at her side. In his head.

The recognition broke over him like a wave.

_Padmé._

He froze, trying to halt the fight-or-flight instinct that had made him its puppet. _Trusting_ that she hadn’t woken him just to strike him down, not yet. Not her. Forcing himself into stillness he focused on clearing his vision, calming the rapid staccato of his hearts as the rest came into view.

White tiles and flashing equipment. A med-bay of some sort. In her palace. On her planet.

He was _awake._

The thought set his head spinning as he settled himself slowly on the edge of his cot, feeling each aching burn as his body followed him into the waking word. _Rejoicing_ in the pain, the proof of it all. Unable to look away from her now.

His unwitting saviour.

She was so much _more_ here, unsteady and vulnerable and fierce in a way he could have only imagined before. _Alive_

“You… did it.” His voice was unrecognizable, even to himself, years of disuse turning him into a stranger to himself. The disbelief making the words into almost a question. “You… woke me.”

She nodded. An uncertain little jerk of her chin as she hovered on the edge of his orbit. Pride and fear. He felt like an echo of her, her feelings imprinting themselves inside his mind as the Force rushed into his empty spaces. Drawn closer and pushed further away at once.

A single question repeating in his head, over and over as her met her gaze.

“ _Why?”_

There was fire in her eyes. Burning and beautiful as she looked at him, not shying away for a second.

“I couldn’t leave you there.”

There was no denying the truth in it. He could feel it reverberating off his insides as his hearts picked up their rhythm again. Unable to comprehend it, not yet at least. The untainted _feeling_ in her words. No guilt or guile or manipulation. It hit him harder than it should’ve.

He fought it back, blaming the long sleep, his sudden violent re-entry into reality. He hadn’t had time to guard himself yet, that was all. To brick up his weaknesses behind fear and power. To shield his secrets from the sharpness of her eyes.

There there was no time to dwell on it. Not now. Not with his muscles still so distant from him. He locked the words away, focusing on the physical instead. Everything felt… different. Not quite what he remembered. Not quite _connected._ He levered himself upwards, trying to stand. To assert himself in the physical world once more.

Balance failed him. Legs shaking as his bare feet hit the cold tile, bones becoming rubber as he wavered, bracing himself hard against the wall before he could stumble. Before he could fall on his face in front of her. A familiar anger flickering up inside of him at his own incompetence.

At what had caused it.

The memory surged.

_The fight…_

A shudder rolled over him. He remembered the feel of _it._ The moment he had been cut down, the sensation rushing through him like ice water, setting his teeth on edge. Instinctively he pressed his free hand against his waist, acknowledging the ugly scar that served as the only visible reminder of his disgrace. Trying to clear his mind enough to feel for the rest, his powers tentative and clumsy as he took stock of himself. The reformed nerves and bones, the metal they’d woven into his spine to make him whole again.

The fact they’d managed at all was a _miracle._

Something he’d given up believing in long ago.

“You should be careful.” Her voice cut through his thoughts, forcing his gaze up again. Outwards. Quietly impressed at her ability to sound imperious, even now, as she drifted at the edge of his orbit. Hands tensing and relaxing as if she was fighting the urge to force him back down again. To make him rest. “You’ve been asleep for a long time, you know.”

“How long?” Time had stopped making sense to him lifetimes ago, he'd seen her age. Change. Seen parties thrown in her honour year after year. But the full measure of his slumber still eluded him. Like so much else.

“Seven years.”

He couldn’t keep from wincing. The universe had gone on without him for almost a decade, and in all that time no one had come for him. No one had tried to resurrect his fallen spirit.

No one but _her._

He owed her, the debt weighing heavy on his unsteady limbs as he watched the uncertainty play over her face. Seven years.

A life.

A thought he’d been germinating since he’d first realized who she was began to blossom, a silent consideration he only allowed himself to dwell on in the darkest hours. What if he could sway her? Not change her, not really, she was already made of steel and fire. But… _influence_ her. Reshape her as surely as she had reshaped him.

What if could show her the _true_ nature of power, would that not be a fitting repayment for her deeds?

To open her eyes to the glory of the darkness she denied.

To offer her the universe… at his side.

 

-

 

The world seemed to have taken on a surreal quality she couldn’t quite shake. Unable to fully believe that he was _there,_ right in front of her in the waking world. That a single touch could really have woken him.

She tried to tell herself that her racing heart was an after effect, a remnant of his dramatic awakening. The moment after she’d touched him, that long still pause when she could taste her heart in her throat. The world stilling, time slowing to a crawl as she waited.

His eyes had shot open **,** waking up in a violent rush. His first instinct to fight. Limbs thrashing, a snarl on his face as he tried to tear his way free of the machinery.

But that was _before._ Before he remembered, stood in awkward introspection in front of her. Disbelief in his yellow eyes as he braced himself against the cold tile and traced his fingers across the evidence of his downfall.

And yet still her heart thundered on. Beating frantically, like a creature in a trap. Fighting the urge to run, to escape this strange, surreal dream. Fighting the urge to press closer.

To snap at him to rest.

To prove to herself he was real. Here. With her.

What if she had touched him before? In passing, when the physicians had summoned her to make her judgement. Would he have awoken then?

How different their lives might have been.

She shook the thought off, the strangeness. Especially since, in another way, this felt almost… _ordinary._ Them, together. Just another night, like the countless others they’d already seen.

Only this was no memory, and there would be consequences to her actions.

Consequences she wasn’t quite ready to face yet.

“What will you do now?” She couldn’t keep from asking it, voicing the question that had been building inside of her since she entered the hospital wing. The inevitable conclusion to their damaged fable.

Their ending.

He turned to her so sharply she felt her heart falter, skipping a beat as the full weight of his gaze fell over her.

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that, Majesty?” He asked carefully, his voice making her title into something… _intimate_ **_._ **

She held her head up, fighting the blush that threatened to spill across her cheeks as she refused to look away. Holding herself steady under his eyes.

“I doubt I could stop you from leaving now, if you chose to.” She replied honestly, perhaps a little more harshly than she should’ve.

It would be all too easy for him to slip out now after all, before the guard noticed her absence and tracked her here. Even unsteady from sleep he was still formidable, and she’d seen from his memories just how _adept_ he could be, a living shadow. It would be nothing to cast her aside and creep from the palace walls, take a ship and… and _leave._

To return to his life before. To the person he’d been before.

The thought sat uneasily in the pit of her stomach, an inescapable darkness as she tilted her chin up. Trying to make him understand with the best weapons she had, her words.

“I can’t make you atone for your crimes either.” She said, stilling the nervous twisting of her fingers as she met his gaze head on. “But you must know that whatever happens next, whatever you choose, it will be on my hands. If you continue on as you did before, if you return to… to _him_.”

_Him._

_Your Master._

The words refused to pass her lips, too _ugly._ Wrong now in a way she wasn’t expecting, lips thinning with a twist of rage at the thought of the other man. The monster who had pulled his strings for so long.

She had considered what might come after, whether he belonged in a prison, or a worker program, or at the centre of some great, grand trial. If he belonged in the ground after all.

There were no easy answers.

Maul was silent for a long moment before he pushed away from the wall, a shadow of his usual feral grace returning to his faltering footsteps as he approached. All restrained danger and renewed strength.

“Then let me ease your mind, Majesty,” He offered as he stopped inches from her, looking all the way into her as he spoke. “I owe you a life after all. Perhaps not much of one, blackened and bloodsoaked as it is, but it’s owed all the same.”

She swallowed tightly as he filled her space, remembering the last time he’d been this close... in the dream. When he’d drawn her so close she’d forgotten where he ended and she began.

His gaze just as intense now.

Just as… _reverent._

He bowed his head before her, his fingers finding hers. Skin turning electric as he drew her hand up between them, his touch light but uncompromising.

“Let me be your weapon. Your guard and shadow. My hands are yours, accept them and I will protect that which you hold closest. Accept them and I will destroy all who you call enemy. I will work your will as my own. This is my oath.”

Those words... The most she thought she’d ever heard him speak at once. She _knew_ them. Remembering them from before, in his memories. When he had been very young, the boy on the planet with the red sun.

She’d heard the Nightbrother’s oath.

Spoken in front of the towering bonfire in the middle of the village on the night of the blood moon. Every member of the community called to bear witness to it as a warrior offered his fealty to the witch he had chosen to serve.

It was not something to be undertaken lightly. She knew that. An honour unlike any other. And if he was rejected… it was a disgrace without compare. It meant he was _weak,_ unfit to serve his people.

She could see the solemnity in his gaze as he spoke the words. Feeling it as the air turned thick, heavy with tension and almost impossible to breathe as her skin sparked against his.

 

-

 

The words dredged themselves up from his memory, slipping off his tongue without thought as he reached out and took her hand in his. So small and pale between his fingers.

Seeing the shock in her eyes, the _recognition,_ as he offered her his life, his service.

It felt… _right._ Right in a way that nothing had felt in a long time, to become her weapon. Her true guard. To guide her towards all she could be.

Certain that together they could be so much _more_.

The power of the words echoed long after the silence rushed in, the tension clawing up his spine. It’s sharp little claws skittering over his flesh as he _waited,_ his breath shallow and unexpectedly harsh in the hush.

He saw the weight of it in her eyes as she considered him, feeling her uncertainty brushing against the edges of his mind as she weighed him up. Darkness and light teetering on her scales.

Something changed in her expression, lips firming into a determined line as she made her decision. Feeling himself balancing on the knife’s edge as she opened her mouth, to accept, to deny, to-  
The door crashed open. Her words lost in the noise as the enemy flooded in.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tbc~~~


	10. Journeys End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She silenced him with a word.  
> Every inch the Queen, even without her war paint or costumes. The potential arcing off her like lightning in a storm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there shipmates! First up and most importantly - thank you so much to everyone still reading and commenting on this exercise in madness. Going into this I honestly thought it was just gonna be me throwing this into the void to appease my own shame demons, I never imagined that others might actually enjoy it too! Never mind the fact you've been so kind and generous in your feedback - I will never be able to thank you enough for it! :D
> 
> And seconnnndly.... okay, honesty time! This was originally supposed to be the final chapter of this fic, but this story won't seem to leave me alone. Unfortunately real life is getting in the way so updates may be a bit sporadic from here on out, I'm not sure how bad it'll be yet but I wanted to apologise in advance for the schedule change anyway! I hope you'll stick with me through it! <3
> 
> And finally (obvs) thanks for the betaing libRellrian! You know how much I appreciate it kiddo! <333

 

 

It happened in seconds.

One moment Maul was in front of her, swearing his allegiance - not to the Queen or crown - but to _her._ Her pulse racing so loudly she was almost afraid he would feel it thundering just beneath her skin as he held her hand in his. Nerves burning in every place they touched.

The next moment the world had exploded into action. Her guards pouring in like water, a sea of shouts and grasping hands. Pulling her back, away, throwing Maul down like a dog at her feet.

Adrenaline burnt bitter on her tongue as the guards pushed themselves between them. A sudden wave of anger bursting in her chest as she was hauled towards the door like a ragdoll.

Something she saw echoed back as _rage_ in Maul.

The true strength of his power reddening his eyes as he snapped and snarled at them. The sleep had left him weakened but he was regaining his strength by the second, she could already see the bloody calculations running across his face.

Knowing on instinct he was preparing to fight.

_To kill them._

_“Stop.”_

The word froze them, a brutal tableau as she drew their attention. Her shoulders strengthening, spine stretching as she stared them down. A single look enough to give them pause. The guards closest to her pulled back, heads bowing instinctively as she took up her crown once more.

“Unhand him.”

The Captain of her guard balked, forehead creasing in disbelief. She saw his fingers tighten convulsively around their captive’s arms and her stomach dropped. “ _Your Majesty-_ ”

She knew it wasn’t his fault. Panaka was loyal above all else, his first and every thought dedicated to her safety. Her _planet’s_ safety.

But he didn’t _understand._

Couldn’t.

And the fear inside of her had grown so heavy she couldn’t shrug it off. Lead chains forging around her insides as she read the scene. Every passing second making it worse. Making it more likely that someone would strike. Maul. Them. It wouldn’t matter who drew first blood, either way it would end in destruction.

_Death._

And that would be the end to it. The fragile hope she’d begun to allow herself would shatter, her silent prayer that maybe - just maybe - they could all escape this unscathed. That they could be something _better._

She wasn’t ready to give up yet.

Her chin snapped up, hiding everything she felt beneath the mask of her station as she addressed her people.

“This man is under my protection.” She stepped forward, daring them to defy her this time as she placed herself in the centre of the scene. “He owes me a life debt, and I do not intend to see it paid in blood.”

She had made her decision. Whatever the sins of his past she would not condemn Maul to an equally wretched future. Not when he had put himself into her hands, offered himself freely into _her_ service rather than that of the darkness.

No.

She would offer _compassion_ where others wanted only blood. Give him structure, choices, and pray her hope in him would be rewarded. That rehabilitation, rather than revenge, would save the parts of him the darkness hadn’t reached yet.

The answer came to her in a heartbeat.

“I am reinstating the Queensguard.” She met Panaka’s disbelieving stare, holding herself as steady as a the great mountains to the west and just as immovable. “And assigning Lord Maul to the position as of now.”

_“But your Majes-”_

“I will not repeat myself, Captain.” She tipped her head, whether he liked it or not, she was still their Queen.

Her word was law.

He balked, head dropping as he signalled to his guards to release their prisoner.

“Of course, your Majesty.”

 

-

 

His first thought had been of danger.

Hands closed around his shoulders, tearing him back before he could think of reacting. Of fighting them off. His brush with unconsciousness leaving him unforgivably _weak_ under this new onslaught _._ Unable to protect her as he had sworn to.

His knees had hit the flagstones, the shock echoing up through the rubber of his bones as he was forced down before her. A snarl curling his lips as he struggled back against his attackers. Reading the horror on her face, feeling the weight of his failure before the figures at his side addressed her.

Her guards.

_Of course._

Come to rescue her from the monster they kept in the belly of their palace.

He stilled as she spoke, fighting his every instinct to free himself _._ His strength already surging back to long-slumbered limbs, the adrenaline sharpening his nerves. Showing him how he could escape.

How he could _kill._

_Stop._

She silenced him with a word.

Every inch the Queen, even without the war paint and the extravagant robes as she addressed her guard. The potential arcing off her like lightning in a storm as she bid them release him. No trace of the gentle, uncertain creature she had been minutes before left as she eyed her guards with cool steel.

They had no choice but to comply _._

To bow to her will as she placed herself beside him without hesitation.

When she offered him her hand he accepted it without question, letting her raise him to his feet. A single, silent moment of understanding passing between them before she turned away again. The invisible crown she wore gleaming as her subjects shrunk beneath her gaze and he became her shadow once more.

Something in his chest constricted. Tightening inside of him as she named him before them as her protector. Her closest guard. As it _should_ be.

“Jeneka,” She snapped, drawing him through his thoughts as she sent the guard closest to her jerking to attention like he’d been electrocuted. “See that the empty guard chamber on the royal floor is made ready. Alaé, fetch some appropriate attire.”

Everything after became a blur. A rush of people that parted before her like the waves, scattering backwards as she strode through them. Maul keeping pace at her heels on instinct, caught up in the current of her power as she walked tall through her palace.

He had stayed here once before, he could remember this place, these rooms. The fine marble and mouldings. The schematics unfolding behind his eyes as she lead them ever upwards

They parted in the hallway of the royal floor, her mask still tied firmly in place as she faced him again at last.

“Lord Maul.” She inclined her head in an elegant display but he could read the flicker of _feeling_ in her eyes. The shadow of uncertainty, of _hope,_ that he doubted anyone else would notice _._ “I trust you have no issue with assuming your duties at first light.”

“Of course, your Majesty.” He nodded, as sharply aware of the words she didn’t say as those she did.

She extended her hand again. Even under the watchful gaze of her guards his skin burnt at the touch, something about her making the world realer still. Sharper. _Righter._

“These people are under my protection.” She murmured, so quietly only he could hear as she used the gesture to step closer to him. Her tone warning and yet almost… _amused._ “No harm will come to them.”

“You have my word.”

She wanted to say something more… something _personal,_ he saw it flicker across her eyes before the mask swallowed it up again. Her feelings thrumming in the back of his mind as the guards swept her away from him.

A familiar darkness rose as he watched them take her from him, only glancing back once before she vanished. The loss becoming something almost physical in her absence. The remaining guards reeked of anger, of _fear,_ their distrust turning sour in his mouth as they muttered their scripture to him.

Times and duties and _protocol._

Like he needed a lesson in how to protect her. Like it wasn’t what he was _made_ for.

He brushed them off as soon as possible. A too-long look. A flash of teeth. They were easy to intimidate. Retiring to his borrowed room with her eyes still burning in the back of his mind.

That last look over her shoulder.

All of the things they had yet to say buzzing in his head.

Perhaps it was wrong of him, a betrayal, but he couldn’t stop himself.

He had to see her again.

He told himself it was because their conversation in the med bay had come to an end too soon. Interrupted by her pitiful guards, by _convention._

Not because the thought of closing his eyes again filled him with black dread, thick and tar like as it rose in the back of his throat. That if he did lie down in the silken sheets she had assigned to him, he might never rise again.

So he went.

His muscles almost his own again. Recovered enough that he dared to risk it, a faint tremble in his step as he pushed open the bay window of his borrowed chambers. Stepping out onto the ledge. Edging his way along the thin line of bricks over the sheer fall of the side of her palace, vaulting across the space to the furthest room.

To her balcony.

 

-

 

Voices crowded her as she was swept through her palace. Quiet, _respectful,_ questions about her new guard.

She could hear the poorly concealed doubt in them, read the uneasiness in their eyes as she repeated her mantra aloud to every advisor who saw fit to question her.

_Rehabilitation would always best revenge._

_Darkness could only be eliminated by light._

In the end she invoked the power of her position, ending the conversation with a look of steady disapproval and the reminder that, whilst she valued her advisors greatly, the final decision was hers. And it had been made. Denying ever offer of extra protection as she returned to her own chambers, locking it tightly behind her as she freed herself from their judgement at last.

The mask she wore had begun to dig into the edges of her, over tired and wracked with adrenaline as she was, the hairline fractures in it growing. Safe in her own company again she let them. Let it break. Shuddering apart until she could leave the crown behind her for the night. The doubt. The fear. Until she could be once more secure in her own decisions.

She could never regret it, her role as protector and peacemaker for the people she loved more than her own life, but she wondered, not for the first time, if she had taken this step too soon. If she had been too young when she’d taken up her crown.

There was no sense in dwelling on it. Not when there was so much to do still, so much relying on her. Pushing away from the door she let the thought go, heart stopping as she glanced up. Eyes catching on the dark shape just beyond the bay doors.

A familiar figure illuminated by the shower of sparks that burst above him.

Fireworks made flesh.

Catching herself she gathered up her composure, wrapping her robes a little more securely around her as she crossed to the outer door. A shiver caressing her spine as she unlocked it, stepping out into the cold air to meet him again.

A little shocked, a little indignant, but mostly… _relieved._

Was it wrong of her?

Was it so very terrible that she should feel almost grateful his unexpected arrival, for being saved from the circle of her own thoughts again. She was nothing if not used to seeing him in the moonlit hours after all. And besides… there were things she had yet to say.

“You’re here.” She greeted him, pushing the door too behind her as she joined him on the balcony. Wondering if it had always been this small or if had simply shrunk in his presence.

“Forgive me, Majesty.” He bowed his head but there was something almost like a smirk drifting across his features in the half-light. “Our conversation was… interrupted.”

“That’s one way of putting it.” She couldn’t keep her eyes from rolling as she leant her hip against the cold stone. Letting herself scan his face with impunity now, free as she was from the watchful gaze of her advisors.

There was something about him. Something so _intense._ Still so dark, so unknown, and yet uniquely… _comforting_ . She remembered again the way he had looked at her before the guards had come, when she had between caught between cold tiles and warm flesh. Her hand trapped in his as he offered up his _life_ to her.

It occurred to her she hadn’t _actually_ replied.

“I… didn’t get a chance to say this earlier,” she took a half step towards him. A familiar heat flushing her as she tried to project a calm she didn’t quite feel. Hoping he’d understand as she met his gaze head on. “Not officially at least but… _I accept._ ”

 

_-_

 

Time seemed to slow, his attention focusing in on every individual moment.

Capturing them like insects in amber.

The way her shoulders hitched as her breath caught. Sharp white teeth worrying at her lip before she spoke. The look in her eyes. Anticipation, uncertainty, fierce determination. The burning need for him to understand her as she lowered her voice just a fraction.

_“I accept.”_

The words caught beneath his ribs, vicious and joyful as she formally accepted his offer. His oath bond. Not realizing how much he needed to hear her say it until she did. It sparked an intensity in him, a need he couldn’t quite put words too. He found the words stalling behind his teeth as he tried to respond so he nodded instead, letting his silence speak for him. They had never _needed_ words the way other people did.

She smiled at him in perfect understanding, so bright in the moonlight it almost hurt to look at her. Not that he could look away. He _wanted_ the pain. The sharp burn in his chest when her gaze lingered too long. Her skin flushed ever so slightly. Feeling himself seized with a need he couldn’t name, a half-formed, restless sort of want that seemed to settle into his bones as she turned away from him.

A half-step behind her as she rested her arms over the edge of the balustrade. The fireworks refracting in her eyes as she looked over the revelry below.

She didn’t move away when he joined her. Standing so close he could feel the warmth of her at his side.

He wasn’t sure what would happen next. There were plans to be made, boundaries to be tested. Memories to claw back and a life to make anew. He let it drift away from him with the comforting sound of her breathing. All of the half-formed schemes that had begun to unfold since he had awoken dissipating, the emerging plans for his future. _Their_ future.

Now, here, with _her,_ he could cast it aside. Content to stay silently in the moment…

At least until the sun rose and their game began in earnest.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tbc... ?


End file.
